Riders of Rohan – next expansion for LOTRO?

OK, I promise this blog isn’t going to be exclusively about Lord of the Rings Online or Codemasters games, but stuff just keeps cropping up today. As eagle eyed gamers on the Lord of the Rings forums have spotted, The Saul Zaentz Company has filed for a trademark for “Riders of Rohan” under the computer games trademark area. People who’ve played lots of Lord of the Rings games/products over the years will recognise the name of the company as it basically owns certain rights with regards to the Lord of the Rings. So it seems fair to assume it’s legit.

If you visit, www.ridersofrohan.com you will find yourself at the Lord of The Rings Online website, which is a pretty big giveaway. And finally, if you actually play LOTRO and know the storyline, then you’ll know that Rohan is where some of the fellowship end up next after Lothlorien. So it basically looks as if content patches will fill out areas between Lorien and Rohan, and then we’ll get Rohan as the next big expansion. Those with a decent memory will remember that the developer said around the time of the launch of Mines of Moria that they were aiming for an expansion every year, so we could be riding into Rohan earlier than you might think.

While Moria added plenty of gameplay mechanics, like Legendary weapons, Rohan or more specifically Riders of Rohan should offer the developers a great canvas for adding some completely new gameplay ideas – combat on horseback, for example, or more army based skirmishes. Could be a very exciting possibility.

While it’s all speculation at this stage, the evidence makes it pretty likely in my eyes that Riders of Rohan will be the next LOTRO expansion.